Kubota LX3310 vs. Deere 2038R: Hydraulic Flow Test, NOT Expected Results 

Maximum engine rpm should be verified when measuring hydraulic flow. Engine speed directly corresponds to pump output.

This was well done, good video. You hit the important point though at the very end, most of the time this just doesn't matter. We have few implements to put hydraulics to use on these small tractors.

The outtakes were hilarious! Great information here. Tim, I've learned so much about compact tractors from your channel.

Totally agree about the “more flow”comment. At least you know a guy that can sort that out on the 1025R at least. 😉

Sure like this " ln depth-hands-on-Tech-Talk" stuff. Proveing what really is going on & what is "happening". Just "saying" these "little tractors" with an manufactures embarrassing flow of 5gpm need "supped-up" to 8 or 9 gpm before they leave the factory. Thanks for the great vidio Sir and happy safe Tractoring.

Just adding tube length with bends and un smooth fitting transition will add restrictions and slow flow. Still, I think this is a good representation of what to expect through implement. Well done.

Parasitic pressure translates in to heat. When using the accessories where parasitic pressure would be present, it would be advantageous to monitor hydraulic oil temps. Great Vidya.

Parasitic pressure loss only occurs at a flow rate (hydro-dynamic). When the grapples clamp shut against an object, flow becomes zero, and the pressure inside the grapple would = pump relief pressure (hydro-static). So no performance loss unless you're trying to run a motor off the diverter valve (very rare).

Interesting video, and I'm here to tell you, Ken's Bolt on Hooks is (or is it are) the first modification every tractor owner should make to his or her machine. They are truly a game changer, the grab hooks make the factory bucket a LOT more versatile.

That was informative , regardless of the tractor color. Good to the very end. Thanks all

Good point about horsepower vs hydraulic flow. If these Tractors had about a 1/3 more lift people could get considerably more work done but I think Deere and Kubota want to keep these smaller Tractors under scale to make consumers buy bigger Tractors. It’s all designed like eye candy to constantly reach to the next level. To me this was an honest review with just facts. Hard to argue with the results other than, perhaps do the same tests with another meter than just the Webtec to see if the results would be the same. It would be interesting to see what Neil would say about this. Can you imagine these smaller Tractors with double lift capacity than what they are? They would be awesome. One would say the frame would not support it. Reinforce the frame. Good video guys. Thanks for sharing.

The cat just has to get herself in the vids. Great demo.

Good info in that video. Looking forward to the 1025R tests. Thanks for sharing!

Great video Tim. Very interesting. Bring back Ken any time. And yep, I agree with you guys. We need more hydraulic flow so we can do more work.

Another great comparison video! Ken is a real asset to the GTT forum and has helped me a couple times regarding fittings etc.

Great job, very interesting. Love the outtakes!!!!

It's very interesting to me that everyone is so worried about more pressure. No one has mentioned that you can have much more force from a system with 1500psi than one with 2000psi... It all depends on cylinder piston diameter. So your loader may be able to lift more with a tractor that has a lower psi. Of course with a bigger cylinder will have less speed so will need higher flow. The higher psi the more chances for leaks, shorter pump life, more power to maintain psi available. Just something to think about when comparing sometimes more is not necessarily better.

I think it's great you get to test and work the tractor, implements, hydraulics, exc. Very informative and honest point of view

I like my chain buckets and 5/8 set back imatch hook. I have not tried my pressure gauge.

Great job guys!! Love Ken’s products I have a 2025r and have quite a few of them they are all great. Keep the videos coming Tim👍

I bet you guys were under a lot of pressure making this video.....but it flowed well......get it....lol.

Hi Tim Thanks for the video on how and where You took the pressure readings I know My L2501 is not a commercial grade piece of construction equipment and has it limitations, and I learn a few for each time I use it We took down a tall tree with a rented 43 foot lift for $350 ( Tree Guy said He could have used a 50 footer ), that was about a 60 to 70 foot tree with large limbs that went over one of Our rental Mobile Homes The hint it needed to come down was one of its large limbs laying across the driveway I rented it and Our Tree Guy did His Magic Skills It took a total of 9 hours with Zero damage and zero injuries What a huge pile of stuff I used the Forks on My L-2501 with the BH-75 on the back and moved all the Mess to the rear of the property with no problem When it came to moving the large trunk sections that were about 5.5 feet long and a diameter of about 2.5 to 3 foot the Kubota would not even budge it off the ground Would not even curl it We expected that but We had to try Cut in half it was easy to lift and move them I have seen videos on YouTub where they adjust the Pump Pressure to increase it, but I am old school and if the Manufacture set it to protect their equipment then they are protecting My wallet The Tenant and I helped the Tree Guy from the ground where the Tenant worked the line that controlled dropping the limbs I'll be 67 in September and I know My lower back has issues so I would have used the tractor, but they wanted to muscle it manually and that worked for them I have been a Supervisor and I know when to surrender leadership to those that know what They are doing and not to Micro Manage from the sidelines The Tree Guy knows How to cut and swing parts of the tree safely and I highly recommend NO ONE EVER RISK this as a DYI Project Knowing how to do the job safely is not learned by ON THE JOB experience on Your own The height, weight dangers are REAL and the knowledge on how to plan the cutting is way to valuable He said bringing down that Double Tree He would have charged $2,000 , and if I tried it and dropped a large limb through the roof that repair would have be more than double the $2,000 He gave Me the Landlord discount because I rented the lift, provided Tractor and labor, plus He did not have to cut it up smaller and haul it off More work for the retired guy Ken in Florida Stay Safe

I’ve had two L series tractors.. a 2501 and now a 3902 …love the tractors other than lift capacity. I checked pressures at the loader and was right about 2100 psi under load…I bumped it up to 2600 psi and made a big difference! Not sure what the limit would be but now it’s acceptable for the size tractor!

love the tim & ken team together!! great show guys

Great video, love seeing the flow meter tests.

Check the flow on the Ventrac it has a different kind of hydraulic pump.

9:40 could you find a machine with thousands of hours and test it to see how much performance loss their is?

Great video and very informative! I love the fact that your cat came over to make sure the test was done fairly and accurately!

A worn gear pump will deliver all of its flow at no or low pressure. Key word is "worn" and not "damaged". Wear causes slippage past the gear and housing, which happens when pressure is present in the circuit. They symptom that you'll get when a pump is worn is that it won't build full pressure. For example, I have a 1025R gear pump that I have worn out due to a bone headed mistake. It was only a few seconds, but steel gears don't take long to wear a grove in an aluminum housing without sufficient lubrication. The pump will still deliver 3.5 GPMs to the power beyond, but will only build ~1800 PSI regardless of the PRV setting. This is basically the procedure for testing if a pump is worn. I know the JD has gear pumps, but not sure about the Kubota, but regardless, wear should not be a concern on these basically brand new tractors. Love this episode and series. Great work and can't wait to see what's next. Also, I'm jealous of the testing setup Ken has created. It does it all!

Engineers: "Sure, we can design a 10 GPM pump for any of our tractors. The 1 Series engines on up all make plenty of torque right now." Analysts: "A high flow CT model will be feasible at an increased manufacturing cost of 3%, but will undercut our medium tractor sales by 3.2%." Management: "TEN GALLONS A MINUTE?? NO compact tractor owner needs that much flow! Have the dealers point customers towards our medium tractor models to better meet their needs. They can upsell a gooseneck trailer while they're at it."

5:26 that lift arm actually look like its made with that angle already built into the arm? I could be wrong but it does match the other side perfectly.

One of the most informative videos I’ve seen. All are informative but this may take it up just a notch thank Tim.

Tractor hydro pumps are positive displacement pumps. This means the flow will not change with changes in discharge pressure. Very important to have a relief valve in the discharge of a pd pump.

Mother Deere probably puts the pump on a test bench with no restrictions and your testing with hoses and connectors to lose the bit of flow. Kubota, bent lift arm, minus 10

Thanks for doing a good unbiased comparison once again!

The reason you see no difference between the loader and PB is because they are the same circuit. Look at your hydraulic diagram. For the 1025R, one comes from the pump through a proportional valve to split the flow for steering and other hydraulic implements. This maybe why you are not seeing the full spec flow since you are missing the flow that is redirected to the steering and oil cooler circuit. The other hydraulic circuit that you were measuring is an center open spool circuit that comes from the proportional valve to the SCV, third function, Power Beyond, the 3pt, then return to reservoir. So the loader and PB should be the same. An interesting experiment would be to look at the blue loader line that has a restriction orifice to see parasitic pressure. You should see pressure when the loader is raised (when the system is actually doing work). When the cylinder is not moving you may not see any parasitic pressure.

Weare shopping for a flow meter right now because we are sick and tired of bringing equipment to the dealers to be serviced .After seeing this flow meter I think im going to purchase the digital readout flowmeter its way more accurate

I agree about compact tractors can always use more hydraulic flow.

It's very similar to electrical circuit analysis. You are measuring open-circuit voltage (pressure) and short-circuit current (flow). To your question/musing about the losses at the loader and what that means....you guys have it right. In the end, your maximum pressure won't be different since as you reach a point where the grapple and/or loader itself stops moving, your flow is zero, thus you are getting no losses (resistive losses in electrical parlance) so you will be seeing open-circuit voltage (maximum pressure regulated by the relief valve). The resistive/parastic losses are only manifested when you have flow...so it just means that you'll move slower under load than you otherwise would, but it won't affect the maximum amount of lift of the loader or the grabbing force of the grapple. Ken's using the right terminology...it's not affecting the amount of work you can do (Work = Force x Distance) but rather it is affecting the Power available to do the work (Power = Work/Time). And just like an electrical circuit, there is a "sweet spot" where you can obtain the maximum amount of work per unit time by balancing the amount of flow available through the various restrictions (therefore affecting the velocity of moving whatever you are moving) with the pressure (affecting the mass you are moving) along with the load. In circuits (as you probably know) this is referred to as impedence matching. This would be most easily demonstrated with a rotary implement where you could monitor rpm under a variable load but you could probably create a demonstration with lifting things and timing how long it takes to lift while adjusting pressure and restriction along with the mass you are lifting between tries. Anyway..great video...I appreciate the good info you share with the community and the lengths you go to in order to provide real-world experimental data versus just trying to "bench race" with spec sheets.

Tim, I hooked my John Deere RC1260 to my Land Pride QH10 on my Kubota B2550 - All works fine as I expected...... I hope you do some videos to demonstrate to your audience to not be afraid to get the best deal.

I really like the technical videos like this.

Like an old man once told me, a tractor is just a self-propelled hydraulic pump.

The machine with the extra valves and fittings that generate paracitic pressure is going to generate more heat. someone needs to develope an auxillary pump and resivor to connect to themid PTO.

too bad your not closer, i have the webtec HPM system, works great for reading flow, pressure, temp and date logging it along with a instant digital readout.

Would like to ask where in the system (flow/power/working power) a change in the flow rate you tested there and the advertised 11.7 max with 1631 lbs of lift at 24 in aft of hitch, (CK 3510 Kioti). I really enjoy this type of video. And thank you and same to Ken for his part.

How “Flow” can you go? Very interesting comments and observations. Indeed, as you both pointed out, increased hydraulic flow would be a boon to handle many more attachments that could be accommodated. Blessings to all.

I own a small Kubota B2401. Someday I'd like to replace the gear pumps with an axial piston pump.

Great comparison

Kioti claims 11.3 gpm on the cx2510 , it would be interesting to test one with Ken's machine.

There is probably insurance reasons for NOT putting a massive hydraulic flow pump on a compact tractor, and more so on a subcompact. Imagine tripling the GPM flow rate on any tractor, and its not too hard to envision some guy running an attachment WAY to big for the tractor and getting injured or killed.

Couldn’t agree with you more ! I have been spoiled with skid steer hydraulics and all it’s possibilities. I also have a 46 year old JD backhoe loader with less than 40hp but 30 gpm hydraulics . Doesn’t look like progress to me !

Great info for us compact tractor owners. Thx...

Very interesting to see the difference in hydraulic flow between the two tractors.

You guys did an almost great job. The points you missed surrounds your test setup. Analog gages typically have 0.5% error OF FULL SCALE so +/-0.75 gpm. That alone could account for it. And when was it calibrated? Or had the actual zero checked? Either could account for another 0.5 gpm so your test rig is probably +/-1.75 gom accuracy. With those limits you can’t really say anything other than “looks like the manufacturers are accurate as best we can tell”. You definitely cannot claim they are 0.3 or 0.7gpm low.

At 11:27 you can see Tim's disappointment in the co-host for stating the fact that the loader for the Deere was under 5.0 gpm, not 5 gpm. Tim is definitely slanting toward the John Deere tractors. 😂

Loved this episode. Thank you

It seems the after market has failed to address the hydraulic flow and pressure needs of sub and compact tractor needs. I don't know why a hydraulic pack hasn't been developed that fits where the mid mount mower sits. A small tank and a pump. Could attach just like the drive over mower. Could produce very high flows without affecting the existing tractor components.

To bad you two don’t get along. Lol fun video thanks. Stay safe

car manufacturer measures h.p. at the flywheel, to get higher numbers and lose about 10% at the wheels on a dyno. I'm going to assume tractor manufacturers are measuring flow rate at the pump outlet and not the end of the line...the difference in numbers are too consistent

Does the diverter valve have open center valves, or is the pressure going back through a relief valve. That would be the reason you get the high pressure on the flow of the diverter.

Why use a Dirverter on the 2038R rather than a third function. I have the WRLong third function kit very happy with it.

Very eye opening on down line add ons

Thank you again for some good information

Still learning from Tim and friends... :)

I been investigating using a larger flow pump on my tractor. looking at one that may physically fit if the RPM is correct. thats the part I'm not real sure about.

Or add a PTO pump?

very helpful, learned a lot.

My question would be can the pumps be upgraded or even turned up sounds like they turned it down if it's supposed to be at 5 but sounds like the the boat of people turned it down because it's being installed by them I don't know maybe maybe you can come up with an answer or let somebody let us all know but moves very good okay God bless this is Bob and Vero Beach Florida have a great day

Your 20% gpm drop from 3/8 inch hoses and fittings to 1/4 inch hoses and fittings match what 'Torque Test Channel' saw using air hoses and fittings!

Would a manual transmission have higher gpm?

So is it safe to say the old rounding up or down method can be applied here?

Great info....thanks

Tim, I’d like to see a comparison between the Kioti CK3510 and your Deere in this same manner. Kioti rates their pumps at 11.5GPM!! Is this fact? Or just marketing??? Their tractor is priced much lower than Deere as well. What is your thoughts on this?? I’m asking because I’m researching a tractor purchase and your videos have been super helpful in the process! Thank you.

Do you know anyone with a Kioti or TYM you could also test?

Increased oil flow requires a bigger pump which requires more horsepower which requires a bigger frame . point being the small tractors will probably break. Because you will probably try to do more than the tractor frame can handle. I know I probably would.

I'd recommend that you be careful about making hard pronouncements that the flows are below spec. Ken and Tim both state at different points throughout the video that it is difficult to impossible to discern the small differences between the spec and the claimed performance. We also heard that the gauge read low by similar amounts on 3 or 4 different setups.

Tim this great information

These manufacturers could do it if they wanted to Williams offers a 14 GPM flow 4000 max. PSI 1300 max. RPM so how hard would it be for them to do it

well done

I'd like to see Kioti, Mahindra, Tym, and Branson comparison with the same tests against JD, and Kubota.

So it seems on the John Deere when using the grapple the only concern would be hydraulic fluid temperature with the parasitic pressure being there all the time...

Great video!!!!

Excellent video! Very informative.

implement flow on my Branson 2515h is 9 gpm. It has 2 hyd. pumps.

Very new to tractors in general so forgive my ignorance but I have a silly question. Is it possible to have so much flow that it would out perform the size of the tractor and implements. Or am I confusing power with flow? Are they synonymous? If you gave the 33HP tractor too much lifting power to the FEL could you create a dangerous situation?

Does your LX3310 not have the factory third function setup for the loader? I’d be curious to see how the factory (“true”) third function compares to the diverter system you have on the Deere.

That flail mowers movement was violent. It sold me not to have it on my 3039r

Why don't they have the higher flow?

Hey Tim, I was wondering if that low of flow matters with a hydraulic feeder on a chipper?

Seems like more hydraulic flow on a compact tractor would cause the 3pt and loader motion to be “jerky”. An example is when operating the backhoe at idle vs full throttle, you can tell you’re getting more flow and controls can feel jerky at times. Imagine if you doubled your overall flow and your loader tried to swing a lot quicker, seems like things would get out of hand pretty quickly.

My Kioti CK3510se is rated for 11.7gpm. About the same size as the tractors in this video

If you really want to confuse people, talk about open/closed center hydraulic systems. I believe all of your smaller compact tractors use a open center type.

Good job guys. Really disappointing to see the Kubota didn't meet specification at the power beyond port. You know I'm a Kubota guy, but I appreciate all brands. Thanks again for the test.

Hello Tim.. have you worked on hydraulic Lines for 1025r backhoe controls ? Mine seem to be backwards

What happened to your big tool rack?

That’s surprising I thought Kabota had their pumps turned up to max

Question: I have a JD 1025r and I was wanting to know if anyone makes a “Flow Control” that would slow the decent of the bucket when loaded? I know it is feathered with level, but it still goes too fast. Particularly with me in a man lift and my wife at the controls.

Yes that was very informative, thanks guys! Hey TTWT, I ordered two ISO Tunes products yesterday, wanted to give you shout out for that. I used code TYWT but “Honey” came up with $6 more savings, sorry I tried guys 🤔😎👍🏻 When are you going to start the content on “how you earn income” with compact tractor business? I’m guessing with all these implements coming your way and the orange tractor comparisons list that’s a bit down the list? God Bless✝️🛐

My Kioti ck2610hst is supposedly rated at 11.7 gpm hydraulic flow. Gotta find a Kioti to test the flow on, and if it would run some implements better then the Kubota. Is more flow better?? Thanks.. central Maine Dan..

What would cause high pressure, but weak hydro transmission in an X748? Anti cavitation screens partially blocked? Or something else?